3. New Testament, Luke, 7.31-7.35, 8.11-8.15, 8.19-8.21, 8.40-8.42, 8.49-8.56, 10.29-10.42, 13.1-13.9, 14.1, 14.5, 14.7-14.11, 14.26, 14.28-14.32, 15.11-15.26, 22.35-22.37, 22.49-22.51, 23.34 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 7.31. The Lord said, "To what then will I liken the people of this generation? What are they like? 7.32. They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call one to another, saying, 'We piped to you, and you didn't dance. We mourned, and you didn't weep.' 7.33. For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' 7.34. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' 7.35. Wisdom is justified by all her children. 8.11. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 8.12. Those along the road are those who hear, then the devil comes, and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved. 8.13. Those on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root, who believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation. 8.14. That which fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 8.15. That in the good ground, these are such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and bring forth fruit with patience. 8.19. His mother and brothers came to him, and they could not come near him for the crowd. 8.20. It was told him by some saying, "Your mother and your brothers stand outside, desiring to see you. 8.21. But he answered them, "My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it. 8.40. It happened, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. 8.41. Behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. He fell down at Jesus' feet, and begged him to come into his house 8.42. for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as he went, the multitudes thronged him. 8.49. While he still spoke, one from the ruler of the synagogue's house came, saying to him, "Your daughter is dead. Don't trouble the Teacher. 8.50. But Jesus hearing it, answered him, "Don't be afraid. Only believe, and she will be healed. 8.51. When he came to the house, he didn't allow anyone to enter in, except Peter, John, James, the father of the girl, and her mother. 8.52. All were weeping and mourning her, but he said, "Don't weep. She isn't dead, but sleeping. 8.53. They laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. 8.54. But he put them all outside, and taking her by the hand, he called, saying, "Little girl, arise! 8.55. Her spirit returned, and she rose up immediately. He commanded that something be given to her to eat. 8.56. Her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had been done. 10.29. But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor? 10.30. Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 10.31. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 10.32. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. 10.33. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion 10.34. came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 10.35. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' 10.36. Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers? 10.37. He said, "He who showed mercy on him."Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise. 10.38. It happened as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 10.39. She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. 10.40. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she came up to him, and said, "Lord, don't you care that my sister left me to serve alone? Ask her therefore to help me. 10.41. Jesus answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things 10.42. but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her. 13.1. Now there were some present at the same time who told him about the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 13.2. Jesus answered them, "Do you think that these Galilaeans were worse sinners than all the other Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? 13.3. I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way. 13.4. Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? 13.5. I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way. 13.6. He spoke this parable. "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. 13.7. He said to the vine dresser, 'Behold, these three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and found none. Cut it down. Why does it waste the soil?' 13.8. He answered, 'Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it, and fertilize it. 13.9. If it bears fruit, fine; but if not, after that, you can cut it down.' 14.1. It happened, when he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching him. 14.5. He answered them, "Which of you, if your son or an ox fell into a well, wouldn't immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day? 14.7. He spoke a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the best seats, and said to them 14.8. When you are invited by anyone to a marriage feast, don't sit in the best seat, since perhaps someone more honorable than you might be invited by him 14.9. and he who invited both of you would come and tell you, 'Make room for this person.' Then you would begin, with shame, to take the lowest place. 14.10. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he may tell you, 'Friend, move up higher.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 14.11. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 14.26. If anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can't be my disciple. 14.28. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? 14.29. Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him 14.30. saying, 'This man began to build, and wasn't able to finish.' 14.31. Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 14.32. Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy, and asks for conditions of peace. 15.11. He said, "A certain man had two sons. 15.12. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of your property.' He divided his livelihood between them. 15.13. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and took his journey into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living. 15.14. When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need. 15.15. He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 15.16. He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any. 15.17. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying with hunger! 15.18. I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. 15.19. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants."' 15.20. He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 15.21. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 15.22. But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 15.23. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate; 15.24. for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.' They began to celebrate. 15.25. Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 15.26. He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on. 22.35. He said to them, "When I sent you out without purse, and wallet, and shoes, did you lack anything?"They said, "Nothing. 22.36. Then he said to them, "But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet. Whoever has none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword. 22.37. For I tell you that this which is written must still be fulfilled in me: 'He was counted with the lawless.' For that which concerns me has an end. 22.49. When those who were around him saw what was about to happen, they said to him, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword? 22.50. A certain one of them struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. 22.51. But Jesus answered, "Let me at least do this" -- and he touched his ear, and healed him. 23.34. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."Dividing his garments among them, they cast lots. |
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4. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 3.11 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 3.11. All these illusions of an imaginary corporeity in (his) Christ, Marcion adopted with this view, that his nativity also might not be furnished with any evidence from his human substance, and that thus the Christ of the Creator might be free to have assigned to Him all predictions which treated of Him as one capable of human birth, and therefore fleshly. But most foolishly did our Pontic heresiarch act in this too. As if it would not be more readily believed that flesh in the Divine Being should rather be unborn than untrue, this belief having in fact had the way mainly prepared for it by the Creator's angels when they conversed in flesh which was real, although unborn. For indeed the notorious Philumena persuaded Apelles and the other seceders from Marcion rather to believe that Christ did really carry about a body of flesh; not derived to Him, however, from birth, but one which He borrowed from the elements. Now, as Marcion was apprehensive that a belief of the fleshly body would also involve a belief of birth, undoubtedly He who seemed to be man was believed to be verily and indeed born. For a certain woman had exclaimed, Blessed is the womb that bare You, and the paps which You have sucked! Luke 11:27 And how else could they have said that His mother and His brethren were standing without? Luke 8:20 But we shall see more of this in the proper place. Surely, when He also proclaimed Himself as the Son of man, He, without doubt, confessed that He had been born. Now I would rather refer all these points to an examination of the gospel; but still, as I have already stated, if he, who seemed to be man, had by all means to pass as having been born, it was vain for him to suppose that faith in his nativity was to be perfected by the device of an imaginary flesh. For what advantage was there in that being not true which was held to be true, whether it were his flesh or his birth? Or if you should say, let human opinion go for nothing; you are then honouring your god under the shelter of a deception, since he knew himself to be something different from what he had made men to think of him. In that case you might possibly have assigned to him a putative nativity even, and so not have hung the question on this point. For silly women fancy themselves pregt sometimes, when they are corpulent either from their natural flux or from some other malady. And, no doubt, it had become his duty, since he had put on the mere mask of his substance, to act out from its earliest scene the play of his phantasy, lest he should have failed in his part at the beginning of the flesh. You have, of course, rejected the sham of a nativity, and have produced true flesh itself. And, no doubt, even the real nativity of a God is a most mean thing. Come then, wind up your cavils against the most sacred and reverend works of nature; inveigh against all that you are; destroy the origin of flesh and life; call the womb a sewer of the illustrious animal - in other words, the manufactory for the production of man; dilate on the impure and shameful tortures of parturition, and then on the filthy, troublesome, contemptible issues of the puerperal labour itself! But yet, after you have pulled all these things down to infamy, that you may affirm them to be unworthy of God, birth will not be worse for Him than death, infancy than the cross, punishment than nature, condemnation than the flesh. If Christ truly suffered all this, to be born was a less thing for Him. If Christ suffered evasively, as a phantom; evasively, too, might He have been born. Such are Marcion's chief arguments by which he makes out another Christ; and I think that we show plainly enough that they are utterly irrelevant, when we teach how much more truly consistent with God is the reality rather than the falsehood of that condition in which He manifested His Christ. Since He was the truth, He was flesh; since He was flesh, He was born. For the points which this heresy assaults are confirmed, when the means of the assault are destroyed. Therefore if He is to be considered in the flesh, because He was born; and born, because He is in the flesh, and because He is no phantom - it follows that He must be acknowledged as Himself the very Christ of the Creator, who was by the Creator's prophets foretold as about to come in the flesh, and by the process of human birth. |
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5. Tertullian, On The Flesh of Christ, 7, 4 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 4. Since, therefore, you do not reject the assumption of a body as impossible or as hazardous to the character of God, it remains for you to repudiate and censure it as unworthy of Him. Come now, beginning from the nativity itself, declaim against the uncleanness of the generative elements within the womb, the filthy concretion of fluid and blood, of the growth of the flesh for nine months long out of that very mire. Describe the womb as it enlarges from day to day, heavy, troublesome, restless even in sleep, changeful in its feelings of dislike and desire. Inveigh now likewise against the shame itself of a woman in travail which, however, ought rather to be honoured in consideration of that peril, or to be held sacred in respect of (the mystery of) nature. of course you are horrified also at the infant, which is shed into life with the embarrassments which accompany it from the womb; you likewise, of course, loathe it even after it is washed, when it is dressed out in its swaddling-clothes, graced with repeated anointing, smiled on with nurse's fawns. This reverend course of nature, you, O Marcion, (are pleased to) spit upon; and yet, in what way were you born? You detest a human being at his birth; then after what fashion do you love anybody? Yourself, of course, you had no love of, when you departed from the Church and the faith of Christ. But never mind, if you are not on good terms with yourself, or even if you were born in a way different from other people. Christ, at any rate, has loved even that man who was condensed in his mother's womb amidst all its uncleannesses, even that man who was brought into life out of the said womb, even that man who was nursed amidst the nurse's simpers. For his sake He came down (from heaven), for his sake He preached, for his sake He humbled Himself even unto death - the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8 He loved, of course, the being whom He redeemed at so great a cost. If Christ is the Creator's Son, it was with justice that He loved His own (creature); if He comes from another god, His love was excessive, since He redeemed a being who belonged to another. Well, then, loving man He loved his nativity also, and his flesh as well. Nothing can be loved apart from that through which whatever exists has its existence. Either take away nativity, and then show us your man; or else withdraw the flesh, and then present to our view the being whom God has redeemed - since it is these very conditions which constitute the man whom God has redeemed. And are you for turning these conditions into occasions of blushing to the very creature whom He has redeemed, (censuring them), too, as unworthy of Him who certainly would not have redeemed them had He not loved them? Our birth He reforms from death by a second birth from heaven; our flesh He restores from every harassing malady; when leprous, He cleanses it of the stain; when blind, He rekindles its light; when palsied, He renews its strength; when possessed with devils, He exorcises it; when dead, He reanimates it - then shall we blush to own it? If, to be sure, He had chosen to be born of a mere animal, and were to preach the kingdom of heaven invested with the body of a beast either wild or tame, your censure (I imagine) would have instantly met Him with this demurrer: This is disgraceful for God, and this is unworthy of the Son of God, and simply foolish. For no other reason than because one thus judges. It is of course foolish, if we are to judge God by our own conceptions. But, Marcion, consider well this Scripture, if indeed you have not erased it: God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise. 1 Corinthians 1:27 Now what are those foolish things? Are they the conversion of men to the worship of the true God, the rejection of error, the whole training in righteousness, chastity, mercy, patience, and innocence? These things certainly are not foolish. Inquire again, then, of what things he spoke, and when you imagine that you have discovered what they are will you find anything to be so foolish as believing in a God that has been born, and that of a virgin, and of a fleshly nature too, who wallowed in all the before-mentioned humiliations of nature? But some one may say, These are not the foolish things; they must be other things which God has chosen to confound the wisdom of the world. And yet, according to the world's wisdom, it is more easy to believe that Jupiter became a bull or a swan, if we listen to Marcion, than that Christ really became a man. |
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